Recently, with the advancement of craft techniques and the improvement of living standards, people who intend to buy a new product consider not only the price and durability of the product, but also whether the product is convenient and safe to use. Such a change in market trends has driven manufacturers and designers in all fields to develop new and better products on a regular basis so as to meet consumers' needs.
Take the assisted-opening folding knives typically used in outdoor recreational activities for example. Referring to FIG. 1, the assisted-opening folding knife 1 has a blade 11 pivotally connected in a handle 12. The blade 11 can be rotated into and received in the handle 12 so that the knife 1 can be carried around. To use the knife 1, the user must push the exposed lateral side of the blade 11 outward so that the blade 11 rotates automatically and is positioned outside the handle 12. While the assisted-opening folding knife 1 is very common in the market, its structure has certain drawbacks as detailed below:
(1) Low smoothness of operation: To use the assisted-opening folding knife 1, the blade 11 must be actuated to rotate at least 180 degrees so as to extend out of the handle 12. However, the longer the rotation path of the blade 11 is, the more the time and space required will be. Therefore, despite improvements made to the actuating mechanism, operation of the knife 1 is still not smooth and intuitive enough. Moreover, for those who are not familiar with the use of knives, the large rotation of the blade 11 tends to cause cut injury to the hand, which raises safety issues in use. Because of the above, assisted-opening folding knives like the knife 1 have yet to be extensively used.
(2) Structural complexity: As previously mentioned, the industry has made improvements to the structure of the assisted-opening folding knife 1 to enhance smoothness of use. Nevertheless, the improved structure is often a very complicated one because the design of the internal structure of the knife 1 must also take into account the positioning stability of the blade 11, the rotation space of the blade 11, and the way in which and the position at which the blade 11 is to be pushed. Consequently, not only is production cost increased, but also the durability of the knife is impaired.
Therefore, the issue to be addressed by the present invention is to design a knife having a novel structure in which the space required for driving out the blade is minimized, thus increasing the smoothness of operation of the knife while the convenience of use and durability of the knife are ensured.